The present invention relates to a photosensitive material processing method and apparatus thereof in which a processing agent is not supplied in the form of a working solution or a concentrated solution but it is supplied in the form of solids and water.
Development processing of silver halide photosensitive material has a long history, and its essential technology has already been established. However, the handling operation of the processing agent leaves room for improvement.
Especially, in laboratories in which automatic developing apparatus are used so as to process a large amount of silver halide photosensitive material periodically or nonperiodically, a large amount of processing solution is consumed. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a large space for stocking the processing solution to be used. Further, it is also necessary for stocking the waste solution. The above disadvantages have become conspicuous in these days.
Concerning the waste solution, technology to concentrate it has been developed recently, so that the space to stock the waste solution is to be reduced. However, concerning a space to stock a new processing solution, an effective method to reduce the space has not been found yet.
Conventionally, the following method has not been employed: a processing agent is supplied in the form of powder or concentrated solution; and the supplied powder or the concentrated solution is stirred by a mixer so that it can be dissolved in water. In this case, the following disadvantages may be encountered. The dissolving speed of powder is not stable and further powder tends to scatter, so that it is necessary to use mixer for dissolving powder in water. Therefore, a space must be provided for installing the mixer, and further the cost is increased for the mixer. For that reason, the processing solution has been supplied in the form of a completely dissolved working solution. However, the preserving properties of the working solution are not good, and while the working solution is stocked, it is deteriorated by oxidization. Moreover, a large space must be provided to stock the working solution. Accordingly, a processing solution supply method by which the deterioration of a solution can be prevented and the stocking space can be reduced has been desired.
In order to overcome the disadvantages described above, consideration is given to tablets containing the processing agent. That is, supplying tablets formed by removing water from the processing agent makes this system free from deterioration while it is stocked, and further makes the stocking space reduce.
However, development efforts have been concentrated on the supplying of tablets in place of replenishing the processing agent to a mother processing solution, in order to make up for the deterioration. Therefore, only the development of technology in which the tablets are quickly dissolved in the mother processing solution has been tryed, and the entire system to supply all the processing agents in the form of tablets has not been developed yet.
Technology to control the supply of processing agents, dissolution and stirring necessary for stabilizing the processing of photosensitive materials has not been established yet in the case where the processing agents are supplied not only in the form of tablets but also in the form of solids. Actually, for this reason, processing agents have not been used in the form of tablets or solids.
In view of the disadvantages of conventional technology, the first object of the present invention is to provide a photosensitive processing method and an apparatus thereof by which photosensitive materials can be stably processed when the processing agent is supplied in the form of solids such as tablets.
The second problem to be solved by the present invention is related to improvements in photosensitive material processing technique for stabilizing development processing of silver halide photosensitive material over a long period of time, using the solid processing agent described above.
There is provided an automatic developing machine for continuously conducting development processing of photosensitive material. In the automatic developing machine, it is common to stabilize the processing capacity by replenishing a processing agent and adding an addition agent. However, all the factors relating to the processing capacity have not been made clear yet. Therefore, an amount of photosensitive material processed up to this time is employed to be a factor relating to the processing capacity of an automatic developing machine, and the processing capacity has been maintained at a predetermined level when new processing agent is replenished and old processing agent is discharged by overflowing in accordance with the amount of photosensitive material processed by the developing machine. In order to make up for the deterioration caused by the lapse of time, the additional agent is required to the added.
Concerning the replenishment of the processing agent, a volume of the processing agent is large in the condition of a working solution. Therefore, a large space is required for stocking the processing agent in the form of a working solution. Further, the processing capacity of the agent is deteriorated while it is stocked. It is required to overcome the above disadvantages. In the case where the processing agent is replenished in the form of powder or a concentrated solution, it is essentially required to uniformly dissolve it before supplying. Therefore, powder or a concentrated solution is dissolved in a different apparatus and then supplied to the developing machine. Alternatively, it becomes neccessary to use a mixer to automatically dissolve the powder of concentrated solution, which costs much labor, and the structure of the apparatus becomes complicated.
Even when a preparatory dissolving tank for previous dissolution is provided, it takes time for the processing agent to be replenished, because it must be heated and stirred. Therefore, the preparatory dissolving tank can not meet the requirement of urgent necessity.
In view of the above disadvantages of technology of the prior art, the second object of the present invention is to provide a photosensitive material processing method and apparatus thereof characterized in that: when a processing agent is charged in the form of solids processing agent component and water, the stocking space can be reduced and the deterioration of the processing agent can be prevented while it is stocked; and the processing agent can be dissolved and mixed without increasing costs and requiring much labor; and the dissolving speed of the solid processing agent component is controlled so that the processing can be stabilized.